Reunion
by sissou
Summary: A year has passed since the death of her boyfriend, and Hermione finds herself at confronting her fears and opening the wounds she thought were closed. An unexpected encounter is going to change everything. Sequel to "The Triwizard Champion's return" OS.


A torrential rain was falling down in the empty park. And even if she just arrived, she had already blended in the landscape and its grievous environment...

Standing erect, she just was observing with chagrin and desperation what was in front of her and that she had been unable to face even if a year has passed. She had chosen to ignore it, ignore what it symbolized, ignore what it implied for her, ignore what it was deep inside her: a profound wound that'd never close up. Past is so painful, but to her it was overwhelming. That was why she had run away from it, why she had feigned being fine, feigned going her life on. Now that the wound she had thought was closed opened up violently, she came here to face this past. She was in front of it, quiet, breathing heavily like the oxygen has gone away, completely insensible to the downpour which was firmly falling down her frail body.

Her soul was as the sky of this night: ground, shaken, booming, roaring, and wrenching.

She was just there, standing, divided between two oppposite feelings. Would she find the strenght to speak?

She slowly moved closer to what was haunting all her nights, she had seen it only once, one year ago and, however the bitter impression it made her feel hadn't melted away. She knelt down and put her delicate fingers on the slick and wet stone.

**Cedric Diggory**

**1977-1995**

**A late-lamented son and friend**

**The spirit of a Champion**

She was sobbing now trying to articulate her first words:

"Forgive me...I'm sorry if I've never come to see you since the funeral but it was...impossible...I didn't feel able to"

Her tears were spreading over her face just like the rain's water. Was the sky crying too?

She tackled her two hands on the tombstone and stroke the letters carved into the marble with her fingertips .

"Forgive me...it's all my fault...I let you die, I should have saved you...and made everything to protect you from him..." Her look darkened when she thought of the second responsible of his death.

And, pain and guilt were replaced by anger and despair. She pressed her forehead against the cold stone and cried.

"Why did you abandon me? Why?...You left me here all alone only with your memory, how could I keep on go ahead in my life if I'm not sure that you don't hold a grudge against me, that you don't hate me for what I did?...How could I smile again when I know you'll never see it? You left regardless of me...and of what I'll be without you"

She was still crying and clenched her fists.

"What will I be without you?"

While her eyes were stuck on the tombstone, she saw a scarlet light reflected on it. Surprised, she turned her face and observed the phenomenon wich was setting before her eyes.

The light's cluster was harmoniously moving in the sky, gracefully twirling around, little a little taking the form of a human outline.

She stopped breathing, divided between the desire to run away and the fascination which was uncontrollably attracted her to this radiance, as peaceful as alarming.

Her eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat when she tended to recognize the hazy and suggested features that this luminous entity had just taken.

"Cedric..." she stammered while the other words were unable to come out of her throat.

He was there before her eyes, not exactly how all would understand, but there.

He was see-through but lacking of matter, the coloured light had subbed everything wich was flesh before.

He was fluttering in the air only a few inches from the ground, "dressed" in his Triwizard Tournament suit colored of the hufflepuff's pattern, the same suit he was wearing the night all had stopped for him, for her, for them.

His face was emotionless: no hatred, no love, no anger, no happiness. It was merely neutral.

" Cedric...is that really you?" she hawed, sure to be in one of those dreams she had thought real until she had bitterly waken up in the morning.

He gracefully came closer to her and stood in front of her.

Yes, that was really him...How was this possible? Why this night, after a whole year, and not before? What was he going to announce her? Her own death? His resentment? His payback desire? And her, what could she answer him? How could she plead for her innocence whereas she didn't believe it anymore?

He could tell her she was the only responsible and that he'll haunt her all her life, no matter, she could have not expected anything better, there could not have been better punishment than seeing again and again his face she had missed.

He could tell her he comes and gets her to take her to Hell or to another unknown place, no matter, any place would look like heaven to her if she was sure to be with him.

He could tell her he hates her, no matter, she didn't like herself anymore though and she was always blaming herself since his death, why would the truth hurt her, even coming from him?

No matter the atrocious and cruel words he was about to say as long as she'd hear the sound of his voice singing to her ear. No matter what he came for, he was here, before her, that was all that mattered at that time.

She gazed him with fear and welfare.

"Don't cry me anymore please" he said his voice echoing back in the graveyard.

Her eyes widened: his voice was so...calm without any anger or reproach. Why was he so full of consideration when she didn't deserve it?

"Cedric...forgive me..." she sobbed "I am so sorry, it's all my fault...I know none of my excuses will change what happened, and I don't even forgive myself... "

" It's not your fault at all" he broke her off "and you could have done nothing to change what happened. My hour had come and I refuse to see you shouldering that big responsability..., stop feeling guilty. I don't hold it against you, and I never will"

She felt escaping in a blow the burden of guilt wich she had sensed during all this year; not her own culpability, no, she'll need a lot more time to vanish, but his rumored resentment. It had needed only some words for evaporating.

Even if she felt relieved to know he didn't hate her, a feeling was internally consuming her since this night he didn't answer to her supplications: neglect.

" Wh...why did you leave me Cedric? I felt so alone" she moaned.

" I never left you, I always followed you and I saw you crying my death all through the nights whereas in the daytime you had never stopped to pretend you were fine. I saw you unhappily asking me that night to answer you, crying me the following ones, blaming me sometimes for being left, begging me to come back right after,...but I was there, next to you, hoping that you would end up understanding it...Please, don't cry me anymore" he explained " I suffer enough for having lost you, let us not be two to do it anymore..."

When she heard his last words, she burst into tears.

Cedric's face softened, he walked up to her and held his hand towards her wet face. He stopped, remembering he wasn't able to touch her, but he finally brushed her cheek with his fingertips. She closed her eyes while she begged her skin, in the absence to feel the contact, unless to imagine it.

" No, please" he tenderly said pointing with his eyes the tears disproportionately falling.

She nodded and wiped them away with the back of her hand passing through his.

He gazed her, and she regained the light she had looked for that night.

" I miss you so much" he confessed while he pantomimed with his hand a caress on her cheek.

Did she really need to specify she misses him too?

" Why didn't you manifest yourself sooner when you knew I needed you so much?" she asked.

" I couldn't. It would have been more difficult for you, and I thought you'd get over it, you'd understand that I wasn't mad...Well, of course I am, because I was torn from life so early and so roughly when such beautiful things were waiting for me. But how could I be mad at you, whereas you are what I miss the most? I thought you'd open your heart to the others, but you only closed it more by hiding your grief with smiles. But it has to change now, I came here for this. I have one favour to ask you" he said.

" Yes?" she asked with some enthustiasm.

" Promise me you won't draw the line at that night in the park. Promise me you'll go ahead now"

" But I don't want to forget you" she niggled moaning.

" I don't want it too, and you won't need to, but I want you to do what I am not able to now...living. By making you happy, I'll be too. So much lives had been ruined, I don't want yours to be one of them, I couldn't put it on" he bitterly said " So will you? "

She gazed him; if she became back like before it was like she forgot him, wasn't it? She couldn't ignore he was murdered, negating it would besmirch his memory. She, more than anyone else wouldn't want it. But she couldn't put on the fact he'll suffer everytime she'd cry him. Could she learn to rue his death but keep on smiling to the others? She could have done anything to bring him back to life, so accepting his favour was a minimum.

" I promise" she whispered.

She saw him smiling. The rain was still falling and her body was paralyzed by cold. She raised her hand and put it over his, still floating on her cheek. She closed her eyes.

" I would like to feel you so bad" she murmured.

" I can feel you, not really like I would want...but I can feel your warmth, the flow of life pulsating in you" he replied.

They kept still in this posture during long minutes, time they would have want to freeze. It was like an hourglass that we could never keep on pouring, grains always ended up on escaping from our fingers until we finally let them falling. How could we avoid what can't be avoided? How could we stop the unceasing blow of the sand running off to our end? The better answer to this fate was maybe to accept it. Why should we condemn what governs all our lives? The real fate was our acceptance actually.

He broke the silence.

" I have to go" he bitterly said.

His words sound brutal to her ear. She abruptly stood up.

" Will I see you again?" she asked, when the panic, which got silent when had appeared, was now beginning to groan.

" I won't be able to come back. Our two worlds are not meant to meet"

He stepped back. The panic wasn't groaning anymore, it roared, yelling in her deep down, ready to explode in a flood of grief.

"No, no...it's too soon, please" she cried out "Don't leave me".

He sighed.

" I never will...I'll stay next to you forever. I promise"

She kept still, overwhelmed by this well-known sadness.

" No, I don't want to live this one more time...It's so hard to say goodbye" she sobbed.

" I know, but tonight, it's different...You can hear me"

He came closer blinding her with his light.

" That night, I would have want to be able able to say it: I love you too..." he murmured.

He bent to her and softly brushed his impalpable lips against hers.

" I wish I were gritty enough to tell you this before and when I could have entirely enjoyed this moment"

She let drop a tear. She'll keep her promise in memory of his words, she'll live for him, for their love. She smiled.

" I entirely enjoy this moment" she assured him.

He smiled too and stepped back without breaking their look while his silhouette was vanishing to become halo of light again. It twirled around and disappeared in the darkness of the night.

She kept still and finally knelt down. She would always miss him but now a new memory had got into her heart. She would always remember that night, not like a last goodbye, but like their reunion.

* * * *

**Author's note****: Thanks for reading. I apologize for my english, and you can find the french original version in the website. Please, let me your believes. Of course, I don't own Harry Potter characters.**


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